“I had an affair. With another woman, I feel desire and excitement again — feelings I have not felt in my marriage for a long time. Does that mean my marriage is over?”

Petra's answer

Dear reader,

I understand your confusion. These are moments with so many possible explanations and so many unanswered questions, all mixed up with powerful emotions.

The shortest possible answer to your question is: not necessarily. But let us not go to the other extreme and convince you that this affair means nothing. It does mean something — just perhaps not what you first thought.

One of the biggest mistakes people make after an affair is comparing what they feel with a lover to what they feel at home and concluding: “There is the proof. Here I am alive; there I no longer am.” The problem is that you are comparing two completely different stages and scripts.

Feeling alive again

At home there are bills, children, schedules, dishes, work, tiredness, a loan, and the question of who will buy detergent tomorrow. There is also the woman you have seen with a high fever, unwashed hair and frayed nerves. And she has seen you ill, tired, irritable, perhaps in worn-out underwear… That is life.

Then another woman appears. There is no shared electricity bill. No argument about who forgot to take the laundry out of the machine. You do not know what she is like after three sleepless nights, when she is stressed, when her pay is late, or when you have lived together for three months and she again leaves a wet towel on your side of the bed. Instead, there is a smile, lightness, playfulness, delight because it is Monday and she has a new dress she wants to show you — unburdened by the life your wife carries. You have a few hours in which you are both mostly your best, most interesting and most desirable selves.

Of course it is intense. That does not mean the feeling is not real; it only means the conditions in which it arises are not the same. But there is something in your question that interests me much more. You did not only write that you were drawn to another woman. You wrote that you felt alive again.

That is where I would start digging. What exactly woke up in you? Were you once again the man who seduces? The one who looks forward to a message? Who thinks about what to wear? Who puts on perfume before going out? Who jokes, flirts, initiates, takes risks and anticipates? Did you feel desirable, interesting, sexual again? For a few hours, did you stop being only a husband, father, employee, driver, organiser, problem-solver and the person everyone needs something from? Because sometimes what draws us most to a third person is not that person, but the version of ourselves that appears alongside them.

I often notice this in my work with people. Someone says: “I am completely different with her.” Or: “With him, I am that seductive, fiery woman again.” And then we conclude: “This person brings out something in me that my partner can no longer bring out.” Maybe. But there is another possibility. Maybe you are still that man; you have simply stopped bringing that part of yourself home for years.

An expiry date

And here I need to be clear: this is not an excuse for an affair. You are responsible for crossing the agreed boundaries of your relationship. Your wife may have participated in the dynamic of the marriage you have today, but she is not responsible for the choice you made outside it. Yet if you are already standing in the middle of this chaos, it would be a shame not to draw out the most important piece of information: “What was I actually looking for?”

If you do not understand that and leave the marriage, there is a chance that in a few years you will be sitting in another living room, beside this very woman you can hardly wait to see today, while she tells you to pick up detergent on the way home. And you may wonder again: where did what we had go?

Novelty has an expiry date. Secrecy does not — until you start living together. A mistress can one day become a partner. And that partner then becomes a real person with bills, tiredness, bad days, habits and wet towels. So before asking whether to leave, try asking yourself several much more uncomfortable questions.

What was your marriage like before the affair? When did you begin to grow apart? Did you ever seriously try to change something, or did you simply slowly adapt to dissatisfaction? Is there still tenderness, respect, friendship, touch and a wish to find one another again between you?

But I would also ask you a question that is far less often asked of someone who has had an affair: when did you last make an effort to be interesting to your wife? When did you last stand before her as a man who seduces? When did you look at her as a woman, rather than as the person with whom you run a small family operation? When did you try to make her laugh, surprise her or win her over? When did you go out with her and act as though you still wanted to impress her?

And perhaps most importantly: when were you last at home the man you were during the affair? Did you ever stand in front of your wife and say with confidence: “You will fall in love with me again, I promise!”

The question works in reverse too, of course. Long relationships create a dynamic between two people; one person cannot maintain closeness, curiosity and eroticism alone for decades. But it is very easy to begin expecting a partner to awaken something in us that we ourselves stopped nurturing.

So do not turn the affair into a romantic story that explains what was wrong with your marriage. An affair can illuminate cracks that were already there, but it can make them much bigger too. After serious and honest reflection on yourself and your marriage, you may indeed conclude that your relationship has ended. That is possible. Not every marriage is meant to be saved, and staying is not always proof of love.

But do not leave only because you felt butterflies somewhere else. They are wonderful, but they cannot tell you who you should spend the rest of your life with. If I were in your place, I would temporarily take both women out of the centre of the question and ask: “What kind of life do I want to live? What kind of relationship do I want? And what kind of man do I want to be in that relationship?”

Perhaps this affair has not shown you whom you should live with. Perhaps it has only shown you, very loudly, a part of yourself that you stopped living. Now comes the much more important question: can you bring that man home?